As I have told many people, the original idea for what eventually evolved into the Fish Tank script began with a dream I had my senior year in high school. As pretentious as this may sound, please refrain from jumping to immediate conclusions about how this factors into the form and content of my honors project film. Fish Tank will not be an exercise in oneiric theory; it is not Altman’s 3 Women. The dream I had was startling visceral, but not graphic nor surrealistic. It was one of those dreams that you remember, but you’re not sure why you remember. This was the scenario: I did drama in high school, and in my dream I was at a cast party. I found myself alone, and then one of my fellow student thespians materialized. He was someone I knew in waking life, one of my friend’s boyfriends. He appeared sad. I hugged him tentatively. Then, he left. That was it.

I have thought about this dream a lot in the years following it. Without delving too deeply into the autobiographical factors of how this dream related to my own personal pubescent psyche, I can state an idea that I have found in (or ascribed to) this dream: the absence of meaning within high emotion.

Before coming to college, I was borderline obsessed with Dawson’s Creek. Feel free to judge; this fascination is odd for numerous reasons. The show ended in 2003 before I knew about it; I discovered it through early-morning TBS re-runs the summer before my freshman year of high school. I taped them using my family’s VCR; I even bought the two seasons available at the local Wal-Mart. Say what you will, it was one of the influencing factors when I decided I wanted to go into film (though I pride myself on skipping the juvenile Spielberg fixation that plagued the teen filmmaker character of Dawson). Why was this show so appealing to me; what with its fantastically overwrought storylines and overtly scripted thesaurus-based dialogue (does any fifteen-year-old really know the word ‘discombobulated’)? For starters, the gay creator of the Dawson’s Creek, Kevin Williamson, shares a birthday with me. In all seriousness, the main drawing factor was that the show painted an idealized portrait of coming-of-age that capitalized on an idea most teenagers subconsciously yearn for: the concept that there is meaning to high emotion.

In Dawson’s Creek, there was meaning and resolution to each of the character’s pains and passions. Joey’s clandestine feelings for Dawson are reified and indulged when the two eventually date in season two, mutually conclude that they are soul mates in season three, have sex in season five, and ultimately find peaceful closure in the series finale. Pacey’s sense of worthlessness drives him to escape small-town life, peruse a successful culinary career, and finally get the girl. Jack’s humiliation about his homosexuality haunts him throughout the entire show (typical network-TV heteronormativity), but in the very last episode, he finds happiness with a partner. As a fourteen-year-old, the suggestion that your turbulent emotions have meaning is extremely attractive; Dawson’s Creek was essentially whispering to a teenaged Ethan Roberts: “Your feelings, urges, and dripping sentiments are not all for naught; they will have resolution some day.”

Dawson’s Creek is not the only medium to broadcast that human emotions ultimately have meaning. A majority of films—including some of my favorites—portray characters hurting for a reason, their yearnings leading to some sort of pay-off, and angst finally coming to some level of a climax. Anyone who is not living in a fantasy world, however, knows this is not true.

Humans suffer high emotions, pain, and angst...and a majority of the time, these feelings are meaningless. On the whole, we do not learn life-changing lessons about ourselves through emotions; they do not come to a climax. Pain and passions devolve over time anticlimactically, or we just learn to coexist with them. I did have feelings for the classmate in my dream, and I did yearn to put my arms around him. However, hugging him in my dream did not allow my feelings to finally have meaning; he ultimately leaves my dream presence, unchanged by my affection. In the dream, I too am unchanged—still longing for requited tenderness from this hetero friend. My real-life emotions for him never came to a Dawson’s Creek-esque climax, either. My fervor for him is gone; having ceded slowly over time. This life is chaotic, disappointing, and somewhat dark...but truthful.

I crafted the Fish Tank script with this mindset; heavily integrating it with various sociological ideas (which I will touch upon later). An anti-Dawson’s Creek of sorts. A slice of adolescent emotion as I believe many thinking teenagers experience it; what I experienced in high school and what I experienced in my dream: highly emotional yet unresolved.